quote Originally posted by v8fiero400: Glad to see you could make use of my old stripped Fiero...

Wow I didn't know I had a big block Fiero!

Thanks to you, Fiero-6 (as it is affectionately known) has been very useful. If you notice above I also pulled a caliper from it as I stripped out a brand new one by over torquing it. Funny I pulled that gas tank in the middle of a thunder storm, while being eaten by moquitoes and fire ants. Other than that, pulling the tank was easy.

One of these days, I'll pull off the cradle and start my 3800SC build-up, but that's way in the future.

[This message has been edited by jscott1 (edited 09-21-2006).]

Why I'll have you know that I once had to pull a fuel tank while pushing the car uphill to school, in a blizzard, with no shoes. All while fending off a grizzly bear with my lose-leaf notebook. Sheesh, some people just don't know how easy they have it. Thunderstorms, skeeters, and fire ants. Waaa! Sissy talk I tell ya. Sissy talk. j/k

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Whade' "The Duck Formerly Known As Wade" Duck
'87 GT Auto
'88 Ferrario
'84 Indy (8/26/06)

Yeah well the Indy has been a long project, and there is still a TON of things to do. The body is a mess, and I haven't even started working on it yet. Still trying to get all the mechanicals sorted out first.

The Indy went for a little ride today. I have an oil leak looks like from the front seal area and something about an 84 leaking oil that makes me nervous. So I'm having all the seals replaced at a shop that I trust. I don't like working on seals, so I'm going to have a professional handle this one.



Even though I filled up today at $1.999 per gallon, I am still anxious to have a Fiero daily driver again. It's been two years since I had that.

Sure looking good. You're doing a good job on it. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

edit: I'm looking to pick up an 88 Formula as a daily driver. Indy don't exist over here at all (that I know of)!!

[This message has been edited by Fiero1Fan (edited 09-23-2006).]

Jscott, I was really just kidding. Mine just came back from the shop. Didn't have time to work on some of the things needed done on it. It's running better now, but still needs a lot done. I enjoy watching this thread to see what others have to do on their Indys. Looks like, from the last picture, you had to replace one of the ground effects too. My driver's side is cracked. Other than that, the body seems to just need paint but in good condition otherwise. The engine, transmission, and electrical? Well that's another story. Hope I didn't offend Jscott. That's not the way I meant it.



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Whade' "The Duck Formerly Known As Wade" Duck
'87 GT Auto
'88 Ferrario
'84 Indy (8/26/06)

[This message has been edited by whadeduck (edited 09-24-2006).]

No offense taken, I knew you were kidding

For some bizzare reason the person who had this car painted all the ground effects the wrong color. The front and rear fascias have been replaced, but the side pieces are cracked and still need to be replaced. I haven't spent much time worrying about that.

I already have one Fiero in body and paint hell, I don't want to have to deal with another yet. I also need to refinish the wheels. It's wearing temporary wheels until I can do that. But I look forward to getting new paint so I can replace the decals.

[This message has been edited by jscott1 (edited 09-24-2006).]

I've got two of my wheels in my shop awaiting tire removal. Once I get all of the tires off the wheels, they'll get the wheels bead blasted and then they'll get my special treatment. I talked to the guy at Fierosails.com to see if he could hook me up with some masks for the pinstriping on the wheels instead of the decals. Want it to really look original or even be ready for a concours should I decide to go that route.

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Whade' "The Duck Formerly Known As Wade" Duck
'87 GT Auto
'88 Ferrario
'84 Indy (8/26/06)

Bump to keep this out of the archive...

Maybe the Indy will hit the road soon???

With gas prices headed back to $3 a gallon the Indy is getting some attention again...

I replaced the temp sensor, speedometer and the fan switch and repaired a vacuum leak in the brake booster line and re-sealed the valve cover.

For some reason someone had replaced the fan switch with a metal cap and hot wired the fan to be on all the time. I installed a new two speed fan switch.

The temp gauge never worked and all the wiring and gauges checked out so I replaced the sender with one from my in-house parts store, also known as my back yard.

The speedometer has never worked since I had the car and I'm embarassed to say it was the actual speedometer that was bad. I should have checked that years ago, since I have a whole box full of speedometers to choose from.

And I discovered that an old sunroof leak had caused the vacuum line to the brake booster to rust until it sprung a leak. As everyone knows a vacuum leak will wreak havoc on your idle.

After all these changes I let the engine run for over a half hour and it settled into a 1000 RPM idle and the temp gauge was responsive but it took forever to heat up. Eventually the fan did cycle on all by itself.

I had a little smoke (external to the engine) left over from my valve cover leak but after this test I'm starting to think the Indy is ready to test the waters for sea trials.

This thread would be worthless without pics so here is a new one

quote Originally posted by exoticse: I'll be the one driving the indy on dubs, with the raised spoiler, hood scoops, and side vents. .

I'd LOVE to see a chopped top Indy....

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1988 Fiero Formula T-tops
CJB 143 of 1252 "factory T-top cars"

I think we have all seen JScotts (Do it yourself 10 minuite Choptop)

Ummm...NOOOOOOOOOOO !

I don't think we will be seeing an Indy chop top coming out of my shop.

Just for fun I'm trying to keep it stock. It's a lot harder than I thought. It's much easier to bolt on a custom part than to look for an NOS or reproduction part.

now to get those headlight motors working.

[This message has been edited by buddycraigg (edited 04-04-2007).]

quote Originally posted by buddycraigg: now to get those headlight motors working.

Exactly, It has a "pop eye" right now with the driver's side stuck open. I'm going to buy a rebuilt one this weekend.

I considered doing like you said of putting in a gen 2 system and putting the bigger knobs on the motors, but it would be a dead giveaway when the lights came up quick and quiet instead of the slow grinding sound of the gen 1 motor.

Just keep a pair of rebuilt gen 1 motors handy when/if you want it 100% stock.

Trying to fix these oil leaks still. So far the rear main seal, the pan, and the valve cover gaskets have been replaced, and I guess that put more pressure on the front seal as oil is gushing out now.

So I'm replacing the front seal and I'm having trouble figuring out what one looks like first of all, and second, do I need to sleeve my harmonic balancer or not?

My father's day project:

The harmonic balancer cleaned up


Sleeved:




And now at least the Indy is DRIVEABLE!!!!




No oil leaks, I drove it 10 miles (half the amount of all last year)


And I still have the "pop eye" to deal with along with about a dozen other things, I haven't even started on the body.

[This message has been edited by jscott1 (edited 06-17-2007).]

quote Originally posted by htexans1: I'd LOVE to see a chopped top Indy....

Hehehehe,.....i wonder who will be the first ?!?

Where is madcurl when you need him !? Lol.

quote Originally posted by exoticse: Hehehehe,.....i wonder who will be the first ?!? Where is madcurl when you need him !? Lol.

Where is Archie when you need him??

Took the Indy for another quick spin down to the quicky mart. About 15 miles in total and no fires.

I'm getting more and more confident. Soon I will take it on a real trip across town, but I need a serious 4 wheel alignment first. It's got so much oversteer right now it feels dangerous at 55 mph. And I've got a rebuilt headlight on order. Soon it will be ready for paint... If only there was someone in Houston that could paint a Fiero...

Funny the reaction when driving the Indy is completely different from the GT and totally different from the Choptop. The Indy has the quintessential Fiero looks and people almost always say, "I havevn't seen one of those in a while" While people double take on the GT and Stare at the Chop top.

Am I going to have my Indy on the road and driving it before you do? I need to get off my azz and get mine running and on the road before long. I thought about having it chopped and swapping in a auto 3800SC to finish it off. Think that would be a good route to take?

quote Originally posted by MstangsBware: Am I going to have my Indy on the road and driving it before you do? I need to get off my azz and get mine running and on the road before long. I thought about having it chopped and swapping in a auto 3800SC to finish it off. Think that would be a good route to take?

Well, mine is officially driveble right now: inspected, registered, insured and fully street legal. So I win.

But these cars are never going to be worth Barrett-Jackson money so if you have a spare 3800SC laying around you might as well swap it in the Indy, and have Mike chop it.

quote Originally posted by jscott1: The harmonic balancer cleaned up Sleeved:

WHY didn't you put some PAINT on the parts you rebuild????? I mean ...come on !! cover up that rust look!

I always put some primer/paint on the parts that I have taken off and replaced. Then you know what you have replaced and what you have not replaced! ( and it looks nicer )

Stop doing a half azz job ( yes I know ...daily driver...)

[This message has been edited by revin (edited 06-30-2007).]

quote Originally posted by revin: WHY didn't you put some PAINT on the parts you rebuild????? I mean ...come on !! cover up that rust look!

Actually, I did hit it and the pulley with a coat of black paint before I put it back on the car. I spent about an hour de-greasing it and I didn't want it to rust.

ok......continue

quote Originally posted by jscott1: Well, mine is officially driveble right now: inspected, registered, insured and fully street legal. So I win. But these cars are never going to be worth Barrett-Jackson money so if you have a spare 3800SC laying around you might as well swap it in the Indy, and have Mike chop it.

OK--Well lets change it to making it to a show with there Indy first.

Thought it might be a good time to start taking care of some cosmetic issues.

The original dash was so brittle I was able to poke a hole with my finger.



So I decided to replace it with a dash from an 85 GT, (which is identical but much nicer in this case)



Even the corners are still nice on the 85



Even the original Pontiac Speakers:



But I'm sorry to say the foam surrounds were long gone, so I replaced them with a pair of Pioneer TS-A4103

Don't have a pic of the dash in the car yet...it's been raining too much lately to go out and take one.

[This message has been edited by jscott1 (edited 07-20-2007).]

The Indy is sloooly working it's way to daily driver status...it went from lawn ornament, to piece of junk barely driveable, to occasional driver, and now is getting to where I might trust is across town.

It was running a bit hot, and I can't recall if I flushed the radiator since I had it, but that crap that passed for coolant was not going to cut it. A flush probably would have been enough, but I decided to replace the radiator as a preventative measure.



Temperatures are much more stable.

Took the Indy in for emission testing...FAILED.

It was the usual nightmare, I took it to my friend's shop who usually looks the other way. We decided to see if it would pass.

All the usual nonsense, he's driving with the handbrake on and wants to fail me for the brake light on. Then he can't shift the car worth a darn and claims that the whole test is supposed to be run in 2nd gear. I'm still waiting for him to show me that in the law book. Well when he finally completed the test the NOX was just barely out.

Tomorrow, my friend is going to look the other way when the cars is tested. Final year of this nonsense, Hallelujah!!!

So, when are you going to need decals for it? Just remember that I offer all of the decals this car needs. I think there is only one other person out there offer all of the decals and I'm a LOT cheaper. Others here can attest to the quality also. So, when you're ready, just PM me.

Kris

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quote Originally posted by shop_rat45: So, when are you going to need decals for it? Kris

I'll keep that in mind...but so far I am at strike two for getting my inspection sticker.

It seems my car is carjack proof because no one other than me knows how to drive it. They failed today to be able to complete the Accerration simulation test. The test is very finicky and if you can't shift the car the test will go out of bounds. I'm going to try taking it a third place this weekend.

quote Originally posted by jscott1: I'm going to try taking it a third place this weekend.

Third time was the charm... the third place I took it, did the two speed idle (TSI) versus the acceleration test (ASM), and passed. The TSI doesn't look at NOX though, and that's what was out before, so even though I changed out the EGR and ran some Shell V-power through it, we'll never know if it would have passed the ASM. This was the last year for me to have to worry about that, for the Indy. Thank goodness.

One of these days I'll make it driveable... I'm taking it in this week to get the leak fixed...I'm done messing with it.

The Indy "might" be fixed. That's what the shop said after working on it. They just re-torqued the bolts on the pan. I'm not too confident that's going to fix it, but we'll see.

It has a new belt on it and it's able to be driven for the moment.

Time for a little maintenance. This should earn points from OhioIndy...the cross dilled rotors were replaced with bone stock solid rotors. Two reasons, one, they made a heck of a racket for some reason, like a Popsicle stick in the spokes of a bicycle. Two, they were not plated as I was led to believe so the immediately rusted and looked bad.



These have less than 500 miles on them, so I'll save them as spares.

The new ones look good for now, I don't remember now if they are plated or not, but let's hope so.

I was wondering about this car. How is the repair holding up so far?
Joe
Pointblank

quote Originally posted by josef644: I was wondering about this car. How is the repair holding up so far? Joe Pointblank

So far so good, I just got back from a 25 mile or so check ride to test the brakes and it made it back under it's own power.

quote Originally posted by jscott1: The new ones look good for now, I don't remember now if they are plated or not, but let's hope so.

They do not appear to be plated. Zinc or cadmium plating gives the metal a distinctive "tint". I suspect you can google zinc plated finishes and see what I'm talking about. There is nothing stopping you from removing the rotors, covering the surfaces which engage the pads and wheel bearings, and painting the balance of the rotor with high temperature caliper paint.

quote Originally posted by KurtAKX: There is nothing stopping you from removing the rotors, covering the surfaces which engage the pads and wheel bearings, and painting the balance of the rotor with high temperature caliper paint.

I've done that before in the past and it works okay...but since I discovered the Zinc plated rotors I try to only buy those kind now, but it's not always obvious which ones are and which ones are not. The eBay ads are kind of misleading, (plating is available but optional on some). I don't mind so much if stock rotors rust, but the cross drilling is only for looks and draws attention to the rusty rotor.

Ok, this sucks...

I take the Indy out for a little cruise, and I pop into a store and then I come out and think... hmmm, I don't remember parking over a large green puddle of water.

Investigation reveals a pinhole, (but spraying) leak from the rubber hose leading from the water pump to the passenger side coolant pipe. That's a relatively easy fix, but further investigation reveals that the passenger side coolant tube is crushed. No way to know which shop monkey did it, but the damage is done. Most likely the increased back pressure is what caused the rubber hose to fail.

I can use a section from the rubber hose to fix the crushed coolant tube, but I would rather replace the coolant line. I have a post in the mall looking for one, but if anyone has a passenger side 84 manual coolant tube let me know. Thanks.

Jonathan